He decided he needed a drink and a phone as he spotted The Swallow Public House just off the Uxbridge Road. With its Tudor-style beams and floral window boxes and baskets, it looked like a perfect, anonymous bolthole to plan his next move. He needed a firm plan; he was now being sought by Serbian Mafia who clearly wanted him dead.
*
It was just after 11am, so the pub was empty aside from a fat, middle-aged barman leaning against the bar reading a tabloid newspaper. He glanced up at Tom as he walked in and subjected him to a cool appraisal before returning to his paper. It was a typical West London suburban pub struggling to make a living, if the décor was anything to go by. The sour smell of stale beer was strangely comforting to Tom as he approached the bar.
‘You have any malts?’
‘Just White Horse or Bells, mate,’ replied the barman, not looking up from his paper. Tom smiled lightly, wondering how long the pub would last in business with the guy’s charm.
‘Lager it is, then. Fosters, please.’ He wasn’t a whisky snob, but it had to be single malt or he wasn’t bothering. ‘Do you have a payphone?’
‘By the bogs.’ The barman nodded to the toilets at the back of the pub.
Tom paid for the beer, set it down on a table and made his way to the door marked ‘Toilets’, finding the payphone on the wall on the other side. He imagined that the phone was particularly popular with local drug dealers trying to keep their conversations away from the ears of law enforcement officers.
Tom fed a few coins into the slot and dialled a number from memory. The receiver emitted several clicks before transferring to a long, high-pitched ringtone. After a few rings it was answered with a familiar Californian drawl. ‘Hello?’
Tom recognised the voice straight away as Mike Brogan, memories returning of their time in Iraq as he pictured the handsome, tanned face.
‘Mike?’
‘Yeah, who’s this?’
‘It’s Tom. Tom Novak.’
‘Tom, my man, where you been? I’ve not seen you for like three years and you call now. Everything okay?’
‘Not really, mate. You remember you mentioned if ever I needed a favour? Well, I need one now. Badly.’ Tom was surprised at the slight hint of emotion in his own voice.
‘Where are you calling from, Tom?’
‘I’m in a pub on a payphone,’ said Tom, ‘I needed to get off the street.’
There was a slight pause that seemed an eternity.
‘I’ll call you on this number in ten minutes. Stay there and stay outta sight,’ said Mike in a firm, calm voice before hanging up.
Tom returned to his beer at the table closest to the phone. He sat and took a long pull on the cold lager; the liquid was soothing in the way that only cheap lager could be, calming his parched throat.
He thought through the events of the past two days. It was clear that someone with police or other law enforcement resources was tracking him to recover the SD card and probably to silence him for good. The suppressed Sig was good enough evidence for that, given that it was a perfect assassin’s weapon. Martin had said enough for Tom to realise that the threat emanated from Adebayo. The question was: who was tracking him? He needed more information, but who could he trust? A wave of loneliness swept over him as the reality of his situation hit home.
That all just reinforced the fact that he needed help from someone who had access to all of the intelligence systems that weren’t available to him now he’d gone dark.
After a few minutes, Tom returned to the payphone to wait for Mike’s call.
Exactly ten minutes since he had ended the call, the phone rang again.
Tom picked it up. ‘Mike?’
‘Sure, buddy… I’ve checked this number out; it’s safe for a short time and we’ve put an electronic disruption around it. Anyone listening wouldn’t hear shit, man. But we only have five minutes, max.’
‘I was on an undercover op against some Serbs and a Nigerian lawyer,’ Tom said, getting straight down to business. ‘I’ve been compromised and there’s at least one highly-placed dirty cop feeding back on me. I’ve just had a serious attempt on my life that probably came from my phone being intercepted. I’ve gone dark and I’m laying low until I can figure this out.’ He spoke calmly but his words were tinged with rage.
‘Okay, man, that’s a bad situation. What do you need? I’ll do anything I can, but I can’t give you boots on the ground. It’s very touchy politically at the moment between the UK and US.’
‘I need some IT capability to try to figure out who is working against me. It’s at least one but probably two corrupt individuals. I need access to systems to find out who’s bugging me, who’s tracking me, and who wants to kill me. I’ll also need someone with the kit to interrogate the phone I liberated from the guy who tried to take me out. I could also do with some tactical gear, surveillance, and maybe some weaponry. I’ve liberated a Sig from the hit man, but it’s a dirty gun so I don’t want to use it.’ Tom knew he was asking a lot, but he had to try.
‘Okay, Tom, I’m going to send someone to see you who’s already in London. They work for us as a consultant, of sorts. They are awesome at hacking and anything you need on that front. Tactical kit I’ll have to think about. I’m in Paris at a conference right now. I’d be over there myself but I’m section chief at Brussels now, so I gotta tread carefully or this could be a major diplomatic incident. Where are you staying?’ Mike’s calm control was comforting.
‘Nowhere yet. I can’t go home as I’m compromised. I’ll get a hotel nearby; I can be anonymous as I still have my alternate ID driving licence from my SRR days, and I have a safe credit card.’
Tom could hear the tapping of a keyboard over the phone line.
‘Okay, get yourself to the Ramada in South Ruislip. Get a burner phone on the way and send me a text with your room number and name you’re using. My contact, Pet, will be with you early evening. Stay safe, man; I’ll never forget what you did for me and I will be as good as my word.’ With that, he rang off.
*
Tom found a mini-cab by Hillingdon Station, driven by an elderly Pakistani man only too glad of a fare. He was a pleasant enough guy who engaged in small talk with Tom on the short journey to South Ruislip, dropping him off by a small parade of shops.
Tom crossed over to the Asda superstore and made his way straight to the electronics section to purchase a simple Nokia phone and a £50 top-up voucher, paid for with cash so that nothing could link him with them. His iPhone and the one taken from Martin remained in airplane mode, safely stashed in his bag. His route had been circuitous, and only paid for in cash; he was off-grid and hiding in plain sight.
He strode up to the check-in desk at the Ramada Hotel. It seemed clean, modern, and anonymous and perfect for Tom’s purposes. He fixed the smiling, pretty receptionist with his most self-effacing smile. A name badge announced her as Beata, her smile was wide and genuine, and she had dark curly hair and vivid blue eyes.
‘May I help you, sir?’ she said in a Polish accent.
‘I’d like a room for a night, please.’
Her smile widened. ‘No problem, sir. We only have a queen-sized room left at one hundred and ten pounds with breakfast. Is this okay?’
‘Fine,’ said Tom, handing over a pre-paid MasterCard in the name of Tom Johnson. The name was replicated on a genuine driving licence that bore his picture, issued to him while he was in the SRR.
He had obtained the bank card a while ago as an insurance policy for events such as this. His time with SRR had made him very careful, always expecting the worst. The work had been such that, if his identity had become known in some circles, then contracts on his head would have followed. He had killed two prominent Republicans in Northern Ireland, as well as the two Al-Qaeda operatives he’d despatched in 2005 while rescuing Mike Brogan. Tom was a careful man by nature, and the option of £2,000 in untraceable funds was attractive. Using his own credit card at that moment would have been akin to painting a target
on his chest and waiting for the bad guys to come. Not for the first time he silently thanked his own in-built caution.
It was a lesson he had learnt from his childhood: life can take a turn at a moment’s notice. Some lessons you never forget.
Beata handed over a plastic card room key accompanied with a brilliant smile. ‘Room 231, Mr Johnson. Enjoy your stay.’
*
The first-floor room was just as Tom had expected: clean and tidy, with two huge beds alongside each other and a spotless bathroom. It overlooked the front of the hotel, giving Tom a good view of the road in front as well as South Ruislip Station.
Tom sent a simple text to Mike. ‘Room 231, Tom Johnson’.
Within a minute the reply came in from the familiar number.
‘Affirmative. Pet visiting you 1900hrs. We’ll speak soon. Stay safe, buddy.’
Tom reached for his grab-bag and took a closer look at the items liberated from Martin Green. He first checked the Sig, handling it with practised ease as he ejected the magazine and worked the action, expelling the round in the chamber. The weapon was clean, well-oiled and, tellingly, had a machined gouge where the serial number would have once been. The suppressor was of a professional grade and not one of the home-made varieties he often encountered. He examined one of the 9mm rounds and made an educated guess that they were subsonic hollow points. It was an ideal assassin’s weapon: light and easily concealed, quiet but with enough stopping power for the task. Not readily available in the UK, and very few were encountered on the black market.
Tom rifled through the wallet but found nothing of any further interest, taking out the banknotes totalling £350, and adding them to his own stash. He took another look at the warrant card, the image of ‘Green’ glowering out at him. Tom was sure it was genuine. The warrant number was a little older than Tom’s: no more than a year though, he estimated. It could be the key to unlocking who was helping Adebayo from the inside, so he needed to know more about it.
On an impulse, he picked up the burner phone and dialled a London number.
‘CID Office Kilburn, how may I help you?’ boomed Stan’s familiar voice.
‘Stan, it’s Tom. Don’t say my name out loud. Just talk some crap for a second and call me back on this number when you can talk,’ said Tom. The office at Kilburn was small and anyone could have been listening.
‘I’m sorry, my dear. I don’t think DC Yeung is working today. Can I leave a message for him? I can call you back in five minutes if I can find out exactly when he’s back?’
‘Five minutes. This number, Stan: it’s important. You trust me, right?’
‘Of course, my dear. I will speak to you as soon as I have more information for you.’ The phone went dead.
Stan was a first-class liar and wonderful at placating irate victims, witnesses, and suspects.
Exactly five minutes later, Tom’s phone vibrated.
‘What the fuck’s going on, Royal?
‘What have you heard?’
‘Something about you going rogue, some shit about a death threat, and you’ve run off with the evidence. Glenda’s been going on at me, asking if I’ve heard from you.’
Stan couldn’t stand DCI Simon Taylor, hence the ‘old woman’ nickname: Glenda. They had often clashed but the DCI was fearful about Stan’s influence wrecking his career, so those clashes had been fewer of late.
‘That’s partly true. I got compromised on a UC job. There’s at least one corrupt cop passing info to some properly nasty Serbs, and some bastard tried to terminate me with extreme prejudice this morning when I tried to get into Holborn nick. I don’t know who to trust, Stan. They have serious reach. I think they have intercepts on me and possibly surveillance. The guy who tried to take me out was a DS Martin Green, warrant number 203745, allegedly of witness protection. The warrant card is genuine, but he has a fake driving licence.’
Stan exhaled heavily. ‘What can I do?’
‘I need you to check out Martin Green and the warrant number; I think the card was issued today and is genuine. Find out what you can, eh?’
‘Leave it with me. Anything else?’
‘I may need a job car with covert blues-and-twos.’ He figured an unmarked car with the under-grille flashing lights and siren would be useful if the situation went as he thought it might.
‘Righto, Royal, I’ll see what I can do. Stay by the phone and I’ll get back to you.’
‘Thanks, Royal,’ Tom said, hanging up.
He looked at his worn and scuffed watch; it was only one o’clock. He couldn’t stand the thought of waiting around in the room for another six hours. The time could be used a little more fruitfully, and he wanted to get a better idea as to who was following him.
Time enough to test his hunters, see who he was dealing with and, more importantly, how good they were.
A tinge of excitement began to push the mix of fear and rage away. He’d gone up against serious bad guys in the past and he wanted to see who was out there this time.
*
He left his hotel room and crossed over the road to the Asda superstore, an idea forming of how he could draw his pursuers out into the open. His hair was currently longer than average for a police officer, he had a heavy stubble and was casually dressed in jeans and trainers. Given that that was what his pursuers were no doubt looking out for, a change of appearance was in order.
After entering the store, he browsed for five minutes at the magazine racks and leafed through a copy of a magazine, keeping a peripheral view of the CCTV monitors on the wall by the entrance security station. He didn’t think he was being followed, but a little anti-surveillance could only be a good thing. He saw no one suspicious: only shoppers.
He made his way to the clothing section and selected a simple navy-blue suit and a white shirt-and-tie set. He picked up a pair of plain black shoes and went to the checkout, grabbing a pack of disposable razors and some shaving foam on the way.
He was not a habitual suit wearer; despite the CID dress code, he normally found an excuse not to dress smartly, much to the chagrin of his boss. He was amazed that for less than fifty pounds he’d purchased full business-wear. It was not Savile Row but he didn’t think anyone would be looking that hard.
Having paid, he made his way to the toilets and slipped into the disabled cubicle. He stripped to the waist, lathered and shaved his face clean, and then changed into the newly acquired suit, shirt and tie.
He then headed to the Turkish barber shop on the small parade close by for a short-back-and-sides. As the silently scowling barber went about his work, Tom watched the transformation before his very eyes. From his inside pocket he produced a pair of clear glasses he’d retrieved from his grab-bag, put them on, and checked himself in the mirror. He couldn’t have looked more different from the slightly scruffy, bearded man of just an hour before.
The art of disguise is not radical: just don’t be what people are looking for and your disguise is complete.
His haircut complete, Tom made his way to the Tube station and used his pre-paid Oyster card to beep through the barrier. The card was fully cash-paid, with no audit trail: unlike the police issue card that left a big computer footprint. To the letter he was using perfect tradecraft, employing the military mantra of the seven Ps: Prior Planning and Preparation Prevents Piss-Poor Performance.
*
He took the underground to Ealing Broadway, a typical busy suburban London shopping area which was not too swamped by CCTV.
He located a Cash Converters store near the shopping centre where, for £100 cash, he purchased a second-hand Sony digital SLR camera with a 300mm zoom lens thrown in. It was an old-style model but would be more than adequate for the job he had in mind. Even more conveniently, the guy behind the counter was happy to throw in the scruffy-looking shoulder bag which the items were displayed in.
He made his way to the Town Hall: a grand, Grade II listed building set back away from the main road. It had lots of meeting rooms and dining suit
es, as well as the usual council facilities and registry functions. More importantly for Tom, it had several meeting rooms at the front of the building overlooking the Broadway. He had once used them as an observation point when involved in a manhunt for a murder suspect.
He approached the receptionist who greeted him warmly, produced his warrant card and, flashing his most charming smile, said, ‘Hi, I’m DS Novak; I wonder if I could just borrow one of your front-facing meeting rooms for an hour or so. We are waiting for a suspect to show up at the pub over the road. I’ll be discreet and won’t get in anyone’s way.’
The receptionist smiled politely as she looked at the warrant card. ‘I’ll have to get it authorised by the building manager, but I’m sure it’s okay.’
She made the call while Tom stared out of the window to the front of the building.
‘The manager says that’s fine. Take room 125 on the first floor. Here’s the key, if you can just drop it back when you’re done. Can you sign for it here?’ She indicated a key list on a clipboard.
Tom scribbled an illegible scrawl on the form.
‘I’ll be back in ten minutes if that’s okay,’ he said. ‘I just need to grab something.’
Tom left the building, crossed the road to the Café Nero opposite, and went inside.
He ordered a black coffee and a panini, which he paid for with his personal credit card. He sat at a table at the rear of the busy coffee shop and switched his iPhone on for the first time since disarming Martin. As the buzz of several missed calls and text messages broke the phone’s enforced silence, he imagined the signal hitting the nearby cell masts, announcing his phone’s presence back in cyberspace. He was now visible to the world, just as he wanted: now he could see who was doing the hunting.
He switched the phone back into airplane mode, silencing its presence once more. Most of the text messages had been from Neil Wilkinson, one from Liam Devlin, and a haughty one from Simon Taylor demanding to know where he was. A couple of voicemails were also showing as received, but he wasn’t willing to come off airplane mode to listen to those. He doubted anything of value would be on them in any case.
Going Dark Page 10